


Notes to Cellf

by Ember Nickel (primeideal)



Series: Fanfictive Idylls [2]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Challenge Response, Dark Humor, Gen, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-16
Updated: 2012-02-16
Packaged: 2017-10-31 07:07:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,363
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/341294
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/primeideal/pseuds/Ember%20Nickel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Things to do on next Peverell Quest:</p><p>*Bully French Ministry into finding Flamel for me—Sorcerer's Stone is clearly a cheap imitation. This should not be too hard. They are the French Ministry.</p><p>Originally written October 2011.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Notes to Cellf

**Author's Note:**

> Fanfiction Idol Round 2: Riddle Era. There are several purposeful grammar mistakes that make fun of the German "verb-at-the-end" phenomenon. If the German part isn't clear, Google Translate should help. :-)

Day...5?

Ugh. If my deputies had been less aggravatingly Neo-Gothic and more actually utilitarian perhaps they would have been able to construct a more practical prison. This cell is almost...grandiose as cells go, up at the very top in the middle. I have no idea who they were intending to put in here. Up until last week I was of the belief that none of my enemies were particularly special or powerful.

Take this window, for instance. It's nice. I have a view of the sea. Why in blazes would people have wasted time negotiating with Muggles for some overpriced island property when there were equally useful landlocked sites? Unless they eliminated the Muggles, but even so, I hope none of my deputies would have cared about their enemies having nice views.

Sympathy. Bah.

Day 6

I want parchment.

Day 18

The Muggle war is still going on in the Pacific. Ugh. Ironic, I think, if I remember the etymology.

(Dumbledore must have gone home, as my guards are a shockingly continental bunch. They've figured out when I wandlessly magick German, Bulgarian, Hungarian, even Russian of all things onto the walls, but not English. This is laboriously slow and raises their attention but it's something to do while I wait for parchment.)

I don't even know any Cyrillic letters!

Day 20

Oh, honestly, I'm not going to send any owls out of here. I just want to write. Keeps me from going insane. Or sane, by their backwards standards. They should want to help me.

I asked if they could move me to one of the work camps. It'd be nice to do some honest work. Contribute to the greater good and all. No, I'm stuck in this because it "looks ironic." They're having a laugh!

Day 31

I know it is a month now because I watch the moon. Probably more.

There is no one here.

There are guards who sure that I don't any magic use make...

English grammar, ugh.

I think there are two guards but when I use the men's room, no one else has ever used the toilet paper. I can the number of sheets left count, as there nothing else to do is. I am the only one who uses it.

Where are all my deputies? What excuses did they make?

I don't know where they put the women's room. Or are there more than one room? Women are very slow on the toilet. I told them, for the work camps, to lots of them put, so that the women back to work can get.

Day 32

No one will tell me if my deputies are still alive. Maybe they thought it would be more merciful to kill them.

No. Where remains life, there power sits.

Day 33

I may have underestimated the importance of the Other Two. No true Master of Death would let himself be shut up in this ridiculous castle.

Day 36

Things to do on next Peverell Quest:

*Bully French Ministry into finding Flamel for me—Sorcerer's Stone is clearly a cheap imitation. This should not be too hard. They are the French Ministry.

*Summoning Charms. Highly-powerful ones at random places on British Isles.

*Get a better sign so I don't need to deal with British nutcracks. The real Questers will remember the sign from before.

*Train Nifflers to find Invisibility Cloaks.

*Hang out on riverbanks at midnight. Just in case.

*Investigate promising Muggle machine. I believe it is known as a "rock tumbler."

*...will have to duel Albus again. Ugh.

Day 38

Finally I get a newspaper, and what is it? The cursed Quidditch! If you, that I about the Heidelberg Harriers, whose captain couldn't his own robes lace, care, think, then you're as big a fool as the rest of them.

And the margins are too small to scribble in even if I had a quill.

I want a quill and parchment and ink. Maybe that's why they refuse, they don't want to keep giving me more and more ink because I will run out.

I would be careful with the quill, I promise them.

Day 40

I read about the Quidditch. I read about the Quidditch so much that at night I dream about it. Harriers and brooms and all kind of things, flying, flying over the sea.

The window is thin. So thin...I could vanish the glass, I know, even wandlessly. I could throw the Quidditch scores out of it, although I need the page more and more each hour. Probably I will need it until I can memorize it.

Day 42

I tried talking to one of my guards.

She is a

a

They are getting smarter about the English words.

Day 45

Still I am too young. I could do things. Any things. For anybody's good, I could do something!

Day 49

I ripped the paper up.

It would drive me to weakness.

Day 50

I could still etch the scores into the stone. I remember all of them.

They do not deserve that.

Day 51

Maybe I would rather forget them all.

Would I be happier forgetting what I cannot have again?

**Gellert Grindelwald was here**

and they made him write in the victors' tongue.

Day 54

Too big. Too pretty. Too fantastical.

I do not know which one of my lackeys built this but someday they—

That is, they did such an incompetent job that I should be able to—

There are some things I cannot write down. I do not know who is watching.

Day 70

Weeks of using my magic in spurts, saving it...

There is nothing here. Nothing I can use. Yet.

Day 74

Of course I do not have to defeat Albus in a duel to take his wand. Theft works. Defeating him, period, works.

I need to practice my tenpin bowling.

Day 75

Things I will do better next time:

*Put all my enemies in work camps. No ostentatious (right English?) prisons like this. It is effective at annoying people but my enemies can still contribute something.

*Establish control of media more quickly. Ditto borders. Don't want news leaking out before I can handle threats from outside.

*Spread rumors that I prefer to communicate in Russian.

*As I will surely never again advance in politics on my own, I will have lots of time to check up on all my highest-ranked deputies and make sure they are doing good jobs.

*Should I develop enemies, I will research their political backgrounds and seek common ground. If a friend can become an enemy, so can the opposite.

*If I must have deputies of the "cast first, ask questions later" nature, I will make them dress up as Muggles so that enemies-turned-friends do not take them too seriously.

*Create a will explaining who takes charge in the event of my death. Or imprisonment for that matter. Update it regularly and announce that I update it so there is an incentive for progress.

*Do not publicize the contents of the will. I don't want people knowing who they're competing with, they will try to undercut the others and we will not get anywhere.

*Invest in House-Elves. Develop personal relationships with them. Especially the kind that can Apparate through Anti-Apparition barriers.

*Create a false memory. If it comes to that, trade it to Dumbledore for clemency.

*And the wand. This will be the tricky part.

Day 80

The Muggle war is over. Ended by strange new weapons that kill thousands in moments. Civilians. Children.

And the wizards do nothing!

Day 83

At last, the parchment is here. At last. Perhaps it will take me days to begin to use, I must prolong the joy of having it. There is no telling when my next happiness will come.

Day 87

Still I have not opened it. I do not want to grow so dependent on these my enemies that I smile like a dog for joy by  _their_  hands. I am not so weak. Never.

Day 95

What if it is fake? What if the ink has gone stale?

I must open it.

Tag 366

Gellert Grindelwald ist hier.

Ist...

Wo sind sie?


End file.
